This page is lovingly dedicated to "my rogue"...Don Lewis Powell
Dec15,1942--May25,1997
"In the midst of winter, I found there was within me, an invincible summer." (Camus)
"Beauty is Truth, Truth,Beauty. That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know" (Keats)
THE BEAUTY OF RODONNA
for Rhonda
by Don Lewis Powell
Be still, my foolish wench,
Because in your stillness
I find more beauty than in others who move.
Your beauty is like
The beauty of the wind
That you rode into my life.
It is not in what I saw
Because I saw nothing.
It is in what I felt and I felt beauty
Like I had never felt before.
Just as waves wash ashore
And clean the beach
Beauty like yours
Rolls over the mind
And cleans the soul.
So be still, my foolish wench,
Because in your stillness
I have found Keats' beauty
And it is indeed
All I will ever need to know.
MY STORY
All of my life-- like many people I suppose-- I have searched for Truth. I have had glimpses along the way...moments of light...moments of true understanding...maybe in a higher spiritual sense...moments of "remembering."
All of my life I have believed in a Higher Power...I have believed in miracles...but I never really believed that a miracle could happen to me.
It seemed that every important male in my life left me...my father when I was seven...my first husband....In my mind, God was "male" too. How could I trust Him to be there for me?
In spite of those feelings, a few years after my divorce from my first husband, after I had read all of the books about love I could find, I prayed a prayer asking God to please show me what love really was...to give me a chance to try to love someone as I should. I prayed that prayer and I forgot about it.
Looking back...I know now that my prayer was answered...In late July 1995... Two souls touched across the miles and two lives were forever changed...
I have been wondering for quite some time now...how to tell this story...trying to decipher what is important...trying to decide how telling my story could benefit others. These days the way we met...via the internet...is not so uncommon.I do believe that it was "necessary" for my love and I to meet this way. Our story could not have happened had we met in the usual way.If we had initially met "face- to- face" we would not have been able to learn the lessons that I believe we learned from one another.
Perhaps one day I will write a book giving details about our journey together....but on this page I will keep the story brief...
We met online in July 1995. After hours and hours of both computer and phone conversations, we met in person September 1, 1995. I always felt that God put the two of us together...Don always teased me..saying that it was just coincidence. It always felt so right...when I was with him. I felt like I was "home"...I had never felt that way before. We had a saying that when we were together..."Everything was right in the universe"....and it was.
We dated for a year and on September1,1996, we decided that we would get married the following September. A month later we discovered that he had lung cancer. We were married right away so that I could be with him while he underwent treatment. He fought a courageous battle but he died May 25,1997.
Why am I sharing this with you? What could I possibly say that could influence your life? I have no new story to tell...it is a truth as old as time...I just wish to share some thoughts on loving one another...ideas that I always understood with my mind....but until I watched Don "live" and "die" did not understand with my heart.
WHAT I HAVE LEARNED
* THESE are the good old days!
* One should always strive to "live in the moment."
* If you can love someone "unconditionally"....accepting him just as he is...miracles will happen.
* Great pain and great sorrow can lead to great spiritual growth if one learns to ask..."What am I to learn from this? "
* If a loved one is dying...and you pray that he will be healed...and he dies anyway...this doesn't mean that your prayers for healing have not been answered....Death is a "spiritual" healing.
WORDS of COMFORT
When I first met Don, he told me he didn't believe in an afterlife. He had lost several friends and family who were close to him and had developed a rather cynical view of life. I didn't agree with his philosophy...but I had decided at that point in my life to try as much as humanly possible to love him unconditionally...accepting him as he was. He, as well, was very accepting of me.
After we were married...I began praying for a miracle...reading about miracles....doing everything I could to find a way to "save" him. During my search, I began to read "A Course in Miracles." Not long after I began my study, a voice spoke to me in the middle of the night telling me everything was going to be OK.
I interpreted that to mean Don would be physically healed. Over the next couple of months "miracles" began to happen. Don asked me if I would teach him to pray. A few weeks later, he told me that someone was in the house with us.....a presence was there. At one point he said...."that Being is sitting in the chair." I smiled and said, "I hope it is a good someone." Don said that it was.
Shortly after that, we were told that the cancer had spread and that there wasn't much time left. Two days before he died I told him that I couldn't believe he was leaving me. He said, "I am not leaving you. I will just be 'down the street'." He also said that if I could see the "real" him, I would be very happy for him. I asked if he had been shown what it would be like and he nodded " yes."
I feel now within my heart that it was an angel there in the house with us. Don could see him...I could not.
And I know now that our Higher Power is more concerned with spiritual healing...than physical healing. I had prayed for physical healing...the miracle was one of spiritual healing.
SOME THINGS TO DO TO MAKE YOUR LOVED ONES FEEL SPECIAL
(I know because he did them for me :-)
* Say "I love you" often...but remember that "acting" with love is equally important.
* Give them a hug....reach out and squeeze their hands...often...for no reason.
* Leave love notes in unexpected places...in the coffee maker...in a shoe...in a pocket...under a pillow...on a mirror....Be creative...
* Accept them "as they are."
* Give them a foot massage.
Words from Ranier Maria Rilke
from Letters to a Young Poet
How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginnings of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us... So you must not be frightened, if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and it will not let you fall...
Beautiful bars and frames for my graphics by Angel9oh7 Thank you, Karen:-)
Rose graphic bars within "My Story" and directly above by
My sweet angels are very special to me....Please don't take without asking:-)
